


we run the world

by hiza-chan (callunavulgari)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Death References, F/F, F/M, Genderswap, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 21:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/hiza-chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Axel first sees Namine, her first thought is that the pale little thing before her shouldn't have made it this far.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we run the world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Conigliomannaro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Conigliomannaro/gifts).



> Written for Lisa at my femmeslash meme on livejournal.

When Axel first sees Namine, her first thought is that the pale little thing before her shouldn't have made it this far. The girl is filthy—her white dress torn in places, streaked with blood, mud, and grass stains. There are bruises dotting her skin, and there's a sickly yellow-green one wrapped around her neck in the shape of someone's hand. But there's no signs of a bite. No sign of broken skin anywhere despite the blood staining her dress. The blood was someone elses, Axel thinks, remembering Roxas—his blood pulsing out of the wound in his side, coating Axel's hands and lap. She shakes her head free of the memory before her brain can get stuck on Roxas's snapping teeth and the shattered remnants of his face once she was through beating it in with her father's steel baseball bat, all gray chunks of brain matter and so much blood.  
  
The girl steps forward, her eyes wide and haunted. Axel sighs. Of course her eyes are blue.  
  
Axel steps forward to meet her, cocking her head to one side and dropping a dirty hand to the hip of her tattered blue jeans. Even after all this time, she's still wearing one of Roxas's band t-shirts. She washes it occasionally, in rivers and ponds whenever she's sure that she's not going to get ambushed while her ass is bared to the world. Hygiene is something that fell back on her list of priorities, and she probably smells filthy half the time, her red hair matted to her scalp with sweat and the spray of blood. At least this way the zombies won't track her because she smells too human. She was never really the type of girl to smell like lilacs and daisies—if she needed to smell all right, she'd use her cheap drugstore shampoo and soap and maybe spritz some of Roxas' cologne around her neck. The fact that she smells like the coppery scent of blood and BO nowadays isn't that much of a change, and she's far too concerned with surviving to be that fussy about what she smells like.  
  
The girl is barefoot though, her feet torn to shreds and Axel frowns, because with that many wounds, infection isn't just a possibility, it's a certainty, even if it's still in the kid's future. She grunts in annoyance and drops her shotgun away from the girls chest.

  
"Okay, sweetheart. Here's how this is going to work: you're going to help me re-braid my hair so I don't die because it's in my face at the wrong time, and then we're going into town to get you some damn shoes before you catch the virus through your feet, we clear?"  
  
She pauses.  
  
"Know how to use a shotgun?" she adds, because this is a girl who looks like she's never even _seen_ a shotgun much less fired one, but there has to be _some_ reason that she's still walking around, heart beating in her chest and everything.  
  
The girl brandishes a small switchblade from behind her back, it's blade coated in gore, and Axel takes a minute to be impressed. If the kid is taking out zombies with something about as big as her hand, then that is one tough little cookie.  
  
"Okay," she says quietly, shaking her head. She yanks the machete from her belt and hands it over, because if they're going into a town to get this little girl some shoes than Axel isn't about to put herself at risk because the little brat can't get the blade all the way through the eyeball to reach the brain.  
  
She sits down on a stump in the middle of her little clearing in the woods and gestures the girl closer. When she feels timid hands on her scalp, meticulously sorting out the tangles enough to untie the remains of her braid, she relaxes, just a little bit. She's been on her own for too long, she thinks. She hasn't felt anyone's touch since Roxas, too long ago. She lets out a little whoosh of air, shivering when those little fingers stroke her scalp, running her fingers to get the snarls out of her hair.  
  
"So what's your name?" she whispers. Her eyelids want to slide closed, like they did long ago, when Roxas would do this for her, gently stroking through her hair while they sprawled out on his bed, chasing the sunlight across his room with their eyes. She doesn't let them, keeping herself alert enough to monitor the treeline. It's bad enough that the girl's back is unprotected, so she keeps her ears peeled for any rustle of movement.  
  
"Namine," comes the answer, her voice as quiet and timid as she is.  
  
Axel smiles.  
  
"My name's Axel," she says, leaping to her feet when the elastic has secured the end of the braid. She grins at Namine, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and tapping the girl's nose with the hand that isn't holding the shotgun. "Got it memorized?"  
  
Brand new day. Maybe there's hope for the world yet.


End file.
